YOU wouldn't be blamed for thinking that Britain had lost its ability to rock.

YOU wouldn't be blamed for thinking that Britain had lost its ability to rock.

At the moment, America has the clear hegemony when it comes to the true bloodline of rock-metal music - bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco not only reinventing the genre (now known, of course, as Emo) but also reinvigorating it with a new, steely sense of youthfulness.

Which, in effect, makes Pontypridd's Lostprophets (pictured) rather appositely named. Formed back in 2003, they're arguably the great lost rock saviours of the current contemporary Brit music scene.

While the urge for most Brit guitar bands is to jangle and pout, Lostprophets' approach is to turn the amps up to 11 and rock hard as if we were still living in the era of grunge.

Their most recent album, Liberation Transmission, made a fair stab at putting Brit-rock back on the map, owing as much to Pearl Jam as it did the spiky pop nous of, say, Green Day.

Crucially, (their handsome boyband appearance plays a big part), Lostprophets are one of the few British rock joining the dots between teeny pop-rock and the serious business of grown-up, intense metal.

American Emo might be winning the rock battle but Lostprophets are looking long-term - they want to win the war.